DeckersMaking strides with 70% year-over-year growth

Company Overview

Deckers Outdoor Corporation is a footwear, clothing and apparel company based in Goleta, California. The company was founded in 1973 by Doug Otto, a University of California student who began making and selling sandals at craft fairs up and down the West Coast. Due to continued growth and the acquisition of several brands, the company rebranded itself from Deckers to Deckers Outdoor Corporation in order to have an umbrella name and become a portfolio company. The company now spans the globe with seven lifestyle brands — Teva, Ugg, Sanuk, Tsubo, Ahnu, Mozo and Hoka One One — and focuses on finding niche brands and building them into lifestyle leaders through innovative design and marketing.

The Situation

In 2004, Deckers had a relatively small e-commerce division with a staff of eight who managed all online retail functions. Today, that division has more than 100 employees. To maintain such rapid growth and the increased revenue that came as a result, Deckers needed a partner organization to do the work outside its realm of expertise. “We’re a footwear company; we’re not a technology company,” said Katherine Romero, senior e-commerce marketing manager at Deckers. “We decided to bring in a really smart and sophisticated technology partner to help us accelerate our growth so that we could focus on the true core of our business, which is selling footwear.”

The Solution

Deckers partnered with ChannelAdvisor to help manage its presence on marketplaces and digital marketing channels, and to implement programs such as Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs). With ChannelAdvisor’s support, Deckers was able to add new products online, optimize campaigns and develop long-term e-commerce strategies.

“ChannelAdvisor was great. I had weekly calls with them where they explained how the platform worked and discussed strategies for moving forward,” said Albert Wilson, e-commerce affiliate and marketplaces associate at Deckers. “Product Listing Ads are very important to our business because they’re so visual and introduce our customers to items that they normally wouldn’t know we carry.”

Additionally, ChannelAdvisor helped Deckers find innovative ways to use social media to create branding opportunities. By branching out on many different online channels, Deckers began to establish an e-commerce strategy that married its customers’ virtual and in-store experiences.

“After optimizing Product Listing Ads on a per-item basis, we ended up having 70% year-over-year growth, which is absolutely phenomenal,” said Wilson.

In the next year, Deckers is going to continue to invest in e-commerce. “Next year we’re going to create one view and one relationship with our customers,” said Romero. “Where ChannelAdvisor fits into that is really from the branding side of things. They’re helping us with some really fun innovations on social media and are also helping us grow the Amazon relationship. We’re looking to expand that relationship in the next year and to see what this channel can do for us.”